Eaton Does It Again

GoPokes.com staff

02/26/2008

Missouri's Leo Lyons, with career highs of 27 points and 18 rebounds, was all set to receive honors for Player of the Game Tuesday night. That is until Byron Eaton decided otherwise. The Oklahoma State point guard continued playing the best basketball of his career as he hit the game-winning basket with 1.7 second left as the Cowboys defeated the Tigers 75-73.

The 5-foot-11 Eaton had his fourth consecutive outstanding game, finishing with 15 points (including going 4-for-6 from three-point range), in leading Oklahoma State to its fourth consecutive victory. The Cowboys are now 15-12 overall and improved to 6-7 in Big 12 Conference play. It was also the Cowboys' second consecutive road victory after they had lost 19 in a row stretching over two years.

But getting the victory wasn't easy, especially with the way Lyons played. The 6-9 junior had the game of his life, making 12-of-13 shots from the field en route to 27 points and also grabbing 18 rebounds.

Lyons is a big reason the Tigers led by as many as eight in the second half. Missouri's lead was 66-59 with seven minutes remaining after Keon Lawrence's three-point play but the Cowboys outscored the Tigers 16-7 the rest of the way for the victory.

Oklahoma State was outstanding from behind the three-point line – making a season-high 14 on just 24 attempts (58.3 percent). Eaton began the game missing his first three shots but made five of his final nine, including all four three-point attempts. The junior from Dallas finished with 15 points, 4 assists, 2 turnovers and one steal in 34 minutes.

Marcus Dove, who hit the big three-pointer against Kansas on Saturday, was 3-of-3 from behind the line and finished with his first career double-double -- 15 points and 10 rebounds. Terrel Harris had 15 points (including hitting all three of his treys) in just 17 minutes before fouling out, while James Anderson came off the bench to score 13.

"I was a little concerned about our guys after that emotional win Saturday. I didn't think we were very good ... as a matter of fact, I thought we were awful in the first 10 minutes of the game. We were fortunate to be tied at halftime. We had not played very smart, and we had not played very well," Cowboy head coach Sean Sutton said.

"Luckily we had a great shooting night and I thought down the stretch we made some big plays on both ends, and when you make 14 out of 24 three-point shots that's going to give you a chance to win a game like this," Sutton continued. "When you go through a winning streak like this, you've got to go steal one somewhere. This is a game where we didn't necessarily play great but we shot the ball well.

"It was a great play by Byron at the end to hit that shot. I thought him and Marcus weren't very good at all the first 10-12 minutes of the game, just like our team wasn't very good and a large part of that was because those two guys weren't playing very well. But he hit a couple shots and that got him going.

"There at the end we wanted to run it down ... I know people get nervous because he gets up there close to the half-court (line), and it bothers me too. I'm always trying to get him to move up, but he does a pretty good job of knowing where he is on the court.

"But in that situation I wasn't going to call timeout just because sometimes it's hard to get the ball back in bounds, and it allows them to maybe trap. So like the Kansas game we elected to run it down, and in that situation with the shot clock off you want to make sure that you get the last shot. He hit a tough shot. That was a big-time play," Sutton said.

The Cowboys now return home for their next two games – Saturday against Nebraska (16-9 overall and 5-7 in the Big 12) and March 5 against Oklahoma (18-9, 6-6) at Gallagher-Iba Arena.